Pokematic's 2025 Christmas Extravaganza

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I talk about my Christmas fun. Things kind of started on the 15th when my department had a little Christmas party; nothing super big, just some people from various other locations coming to our place. I did get a poinsettia flower for our friend since they had extras after the party and I knew someone would want it. Nothing too spectacular though, but it was technically the start.

Things really started on the 20th when I went to my parent's house to do chocolate dipping with my mom, and help our accordion friend set up her life alert and give her her gifts. We got her a bag of hot hands hand warmers since those are good for her arthritis and a PF Chang's gift card since she likes to take us there. She got mskate socks and me a Pokemon Time magazine. I had 2 of them and now I have 3; Pikachu, Charmander, and now Arcanine. In addition to helping her get the life alert watch set-up I also installed a lock box in her door frame. She was really happy to have us all over.

After that we went to my parent's house. I started the chocolate in the double boiler, and as I'm melting it down it was getting kind of clumpy. That was not great since you can't really dip pretzels and potato chips and cookies in clumped chocolate. Mom pulled about half of it out and we tried adding water according to multiple sources. Well, that only made it worse, so we made what we call "Christmas crap;" when chocolate gets ruined, it still tastes good, so we clump it and stick pretzels and m&ms in it to make something fun that looks like poop (hence the name). We put it between parchment paper and flattened it out to add the stuff. We were able to melt down the other parts by putting it in the microwave. With that done we cleaned the pot and dried it REALLY good before melting more. That went along much better. It was a fun time and we made a lot of treats for the upcoming festivities.

After our dipping fun we went back to our accordion friend and finished setting up the life alert. We didn't know her son already got everything and we just had to activate. We showed her how it works and tested it. It worked in the house, so that was great. After that she took mskate and I out for pizza. We got a salad to split and it was quite good. Instead of pizza I got the barbecue cheese burger, and our friend was surprised I was able to eat it all. Mskate had some left overs so that was good for her. That was the end of that little fun.

It's now the 23rd, and I used my final vacation day. I had the day off, but not mskate, because she works for Santa at the mall, and I was going to see her, but only at the end of her shift. This meant I had some time to myself before I had to go up to the family. Well I filmed a "food review" of building a snap together model that I got last year and has been sitting on my dining room table waiting to be built. There was also a 2 hour window where bio and I could record a podcast, and so we did.

Going to the mall to see mskate was fun. She does stuff for the mall when there's a seasonal thing, and apparently I was wearing the same thing I did when I saw her last time. Kind of funny. After that we went to her parents house and got set-up for the half week. In the evening we went to the bar vikingpolak works at some time. It's a little local microbrewery where they make their own beer; and I really like their sour blueberry beer. They also have some pinball machines and a couple arcade machines. I got $5 in quarters and played the pinball machines. I also kind of accidentally ended up paying for everyone's drinks; I originally opened a tab just for mskate and I, but then she put her mom's drink on the tab (no problem there, I am staying at her house this half week), and then IRA got added (again, unexpected but his parents are putting us up), and then my parents showed up and they ended up on the tab as well (which is fine, they're my parents so I'll buy their drinks), so I guess I ended up starting the giving lol. There was actually something kind of funny with the pinball; I was playing the x-men table and the ball got stuck in the ramp. I told vikingpolak about it and he said he'll let the guy they rent their machines from about it. I could have fixed it myself, but that could have voided their warranty or something. That was it for the 23rd.

It's now December 24th, Christmas Eve. The morning at my in-laws was pretty calm, nothing super exciting. Noon is when things really started. Just a reminder, on Christmas Eve we go to McDonald's for lunch because when I was little that was when Santa would come to my grandparents, and we keep the tradition alive, even though my grandma is no longer with us and that was her thing. Mskate wanted to get a Grinch Meal but they were all sold out. We still got a happy meal with my points, and then got deals with everything else; a $2 large fry, a $6 10 piece mcnugget meal, and 20% off $10 or more (which we used with a quarter pounder meal and value cheeseburger meal). In total we saved $17. The food was good, fast food, nothing special but filling.

We now did the gift exchange with my parents on Christmas Eve since we didn't have my grandma this year. We set-up the living room moving the coffee table and positioning the presents with everyone getting in their positions. We got my mom a helium tank at the Party City going out of business sale since she likes balloons, and since it was big and would require a lot of wrapping paper we put it in a bicycle bag, along with all her other presents that were wrapped. Since it was a bike bag and was called a bike bag the joke we said was "we got you a bike since that's what comes in bike bags, some assembly required." We also got her some mylar balloons to inflate with her tank, and that was fun. We also got her a box of variety coffee pods since they recently got a kcup coffee maker and like the options now and princess plates and napkins, and a Disneyland sweat shirt. For my brother we got him some things that were of his interests; a power bank thing for camping, emergency blankets, a VHS copy of Strange Brew (he loves Bob and Doug McKenzy), and a Hot Wheels Barbie McDonald's cup based on a story from when we were kids. For my dad we got him some Peanuts comic things (socks and a magnet), decaf coffee pods, and speed racer. Now for my presents; I got peanut m&ms, peanut butter m&ms, spongebob socks and Patrick socks, Napoleon Dynamite socks, nerds clusters, a drone, a puzzle vase, some switch games (epic micky, hello kitty, and pacman world), a tigger jersey, some different PS2 gmaes that I bought on black friday, sunflower seeds, bullets, and star bills.

Christmas mass was Christmas mass. We went to my parent's church since we were in the area. Apparently at our home parish the priest gave the children snow wands, nothing like that at my parent's church. Mskate and I got there first so we found space for everyone. After mass we went back to mskate's parents for diner and some early Christmas. We had the spring rolls we got from a church acquaintance and meat balls. The spring rolls went over very well. Early presents went well. I got a voice modulator microphone, a gameboy lego, and a spongebob mug that IRA bought me when we went to Universal Studios. Funny thing, he bought it when we went to the Spongebob store and I was busy playing in the musical pineapple. The big winner present of the night ended up being the Go On DVD set we got IRA. I watched it back when it was airing and thought it was entertaining, and I knew he would enjoy it. Little did I know he would REALLY like it as does my father-in-law; we watched 3 episodes before bed time and the laughter was heavy. I also made my vase puzzle and it looks quite good. Before going to bed I started my "watch A Christmas Story on TBS" tradition. I came in with about 30 minutes left, and watched the first hour of the next airing, so all I had to do was watch the 3rd quarter to have seen it all.

Now it's Christmas Day, we slowly wake up as IRA is super excited to open presents. I watched the remaining quarter of A Christmas Story after waking up, so now I had completely watched all of A Christmas Story on TBS. We all gather in the living room and start passing out the tree. We got a letter from Santa about how the dogs were gone now. A lot of the things we gave were from Disneyland, and everyone was happy. I got gift cards to McDonalds, Chuck E Cheese, and Visa, a capsule machine lego, a table vice, a Gaston shirt, Rocket Power the complete series on DVD, warhead candy, chocolate marshmallows, some other candy, a Disney pressed penny book, a stitch rubber duck, a rabbit Ralphy stuffed animal thing (that I initially thought was a labubu), and many socks (popeye, kirby, snorlax, and yoda). One of mskate's highlights was a stuffed animal tower since our stuffed animal hammocks are getting kind of full. Afterwards we had breakfast, eggs and bacon with some cut fruit.

After playing around with some stuff and just relaxing, we went over to my parents for Christmas. Mskate and I went to CVS to get a present for our friend's Aunt Bird; she specifically asked for coloring books but all the coloring books were really expensive, so we got her a little lego creator stocking stuffer for $5. Mskate looked up the set online and it's going for a lot more online, and then because it was CVS I had a coupon on the receipt I was able to get another for 72 cents. We went to my parents and it was kind of different. My dad came down with something on Christmas Eve so he spent the entire evening upstairs in his rooms. It was still a good time. Our accordion friend came and our other friend with their Aunt Bird. PepperBC's family was going to join us, but they decided against it since my dad was sick and they have some health problems. It was really fun, we put on A Christmas Story to just let it run in the background, and we facetimed TanMan since accordion friend is his grandma and they're expecting. Dinner was pretty good, we had ham and chicken, green beans and green bean casserole, corn, and rolls. After dinner we did our sing-along with the accordion. The fun thing is we have these bell sticks that we made back in cub scouts with the other friend as our pack leader, so that was fun to say "look, the bells are still working." Whenever there was a song that mentioned bells we all shook the jingle bells. Then there was one song where I pulled out my new voice modulator microphone, which got a good laugh from everyone. IRA and mom-in-law came over for this as well. After the sing-along we gave the gifts to IRA and Aunt Bird, and they really enjoyed them. IRA got a special disneyworld football that was signed by the characters that was found while cleaning out another aunt's house, and a Courage the Cowardly Dog DVD set. It was a really fun time. Afterwards we just went to my in-laws and hung out until the end of the night.

The day after Christmas was pretty calm. Mskate, IRA, and I went to different stores for after Christmas sales. We went to CVS, Meijer, Target, and Walmart. We found some things, but nothing too spectacular. Later in the day IRA and I went to see Spongebob Squarepants the Search for Square Pants, and mskate and mom-in-law went to see Wicked for Good. It was a pretty funny movie. We had dinner at the movies, I had a Freddy Fasbear spicy pizza (pepperoni, jalapenos, and a "sweet drizzle" whatever that was). It was pretty good, and they delivered it to our seat. IRA had loaded French fries (fries, nacho cheese, and bacon). The next day we loaded up the van with all our presents and I'm loving having a minivan, and now it's just finding places for all our new stuff. I've found a place for about half of it, yay. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic Goes to the Toledo Zoo Lights

Hey everyone, back in the day mskate and I would go to the Detroit Zoo Wild Lights, and this year we decided to go to the Toledo Zoo Wild Lights. It's been many years (maybe around 2 decades) since I was last there, but it used to be a pretty common thing; my family would go to the Toledo Zoo when I was little, and in cub scouts we would stay the night in the zoo sometimes, but we haven't been since the cub scout sleep overs. This was a fun thing, mskate and I get a little date get away while enjoying a place that's familiar but not. I also had some vacation I had to use up, so this was a good way to use up the day. Mskate and I left for the hotel, and checked in at about 2 PM. We got suited up for the cold northern Ohio winter night, with 2 pairs of pants and 2 jackets.

Our tickets were for 3PM, and we got there at basically right when the tickets let us in. The parking lot was REALLY empty, which meant we could get a spot right close to the entrance. The Toledo Zoo has this kind of weird set-up, the parking lot and the zoo are on opposite sides of a major freeway; I assume there was a weird thing about where they could get land back in the day, so to go to the zoo one has to go through the tunnel or over the bridge. I'll get to that details later, but first something new, because the zoo has developed things on the parking lot side. It's like an artic exhibit; artic foxes, polar bears, seals, and some other things. This is also where they have the giraffe encounter, the train, and the carousel. Since we got there while it was still day some of the animals were still out. The foxes and polar bears weren't, but we got to see seal swimming and the giraffes in their inside enclosure. Even though we didn't see any polar bears or foxes, the exhibits were pretty cool; the polar bears showed off artic life and explorations, and the foxes was an artic cabin that had a working fireplace (wasn't in use, but there were signs that it has been used and signs that said to be careful).

Now it's time to go to the main zoo. As I said, we could take the tunnel or the bridge. So here's my history with this. When I was REALLY little (like 3 and 4), all they had was the tunnel, and I thought it was so cool because it was like themed to a subway and felt like I was exploring a secret passage (at least that was the faded memories I had of it). There's a story that my grandpa watched me run back and forth in it. Well when I started "really having memories" they installed a bridge and from then on the only option was the bridge (the tunnel was still there, but it was always closed). This bummed me out because while the bridge is interesting (you can see cars go under you, and there are animal prints in the wall), I grew up in a place where highway overpasses were common and "walking over traffic" was "a normal thing," but tunnels were rare so being able to go under ground in a dark tunnel was novel, and now every time I went to the Toledo Zoo "the subway" kept taunting me. Well 20 years later both the tunnel and the bridge are open, so I had to go through the tunnel. Mskate didn't really get why I was so excited to go through the tunnel, but we've been married long enough that she knows I just kind of have my things that are important to me for no real logical reason. Well going through the tunnel was kind of like when I went through alternate entrances at the zoo during covid. As an adult, there's nothing all that special about it; there is "branding" as a subway station with tile words on the wall and murals on the wall, but it is "just a walk way." If I was any other adult, I would probably be disappointed that "it's just a tunnel, there's really nothing special about it," but I am not "any other adult," and when I went through the tunnel I was in awe of "subway theming, murals, I'm under the cars, there's a service grate above me, this is what 4 year old me remembers and was denied all the times I have vivid memories of," and I finally felt closure on that. Woo hoo.

Time for some animals. Before crossing over we saw the bald eagles on the parking lot side of the zoo. They were at the bridge, so we went up the bridge ramp a little to see them. On the original animal side we saw tigers and dingoes. The tigers were really cool, they were active and walking up to the front of the enclosure where we could see them up close. Then there was one that was making noises; it wasn't like a mighty roar, but it was like some kind of grunt. I was really happy since there wasn't any music playing and it was a "natural wild sound," so I got a sample for my next audio library. That was really cool. Afterwards it started lying on the ground like a house cat, and one of the other guests said "aww, I want to play with the murder kitty." Yeah, it's really funny how similar big cats and house cats are; if we were 20 times larger we would have pet lions and tigers, or if our house cats were 20 times larger they would eat us like a lion or tiger. After them we made our way to the elephants. There was an exhibit for the hippos, but they were away, same with the otters. When we got to the elephants they were not out, but we could hear the zapping of the electric fence. That was kind of interesting, reminded me of something out of Jurassic Park, and makes perfect sense since the elephants are giant animals. The elephants had an inside exhibit where we saw a baby walking around and probably a mom eating hay. I was happy since one of my favorite zoo animals when I was little was elephants. Close by was the rhinoceroses, which also weren't outside but were in their inside enclosure. The rhino was playing with a ball, and his horn was all filed down for safety.

After the animals would have been a great time to go to the reptile house (it's right by the elephants), but unfortunately it was closed for renovations. Too bad, I think that's where the cub scout sleep overs were, and I like reptiles. Oh well, the next place we went was the museum of natural history, where they showed different taxidermy natural history exhibit things. There was also some private event going on there, which might have closed off some exhibit, or it was just an open hall. There wasn't much security to keep regular guests out, but maybe at the food station they had a wrist band. Whatever. The 2nd floor was really cool, it had a bunch of reptiles and amphibians, which was really fun. They had a poison dart frog exhibit, but the poison dart frogs were hiding. That's annoying to me because poison dart frogs are my favorite zoo animal these days; they're bright pastel colors, like the only animal that's pastel colors, and I like bright pastel colors. Oh well, there were plenty of other animals. There was also a bug exhibit, and it was pretty cool because they were like bugs from Animal Crossing. It was pretty cool. We initially went there to see the model train exhibit, but that was next door at the kid fun zone. The train was pretty cool; there was one that was all Disney themed box cars, and one that was Charlie Brown and Lucy on one of those hand cars, and they had a drive in movie set-up where they were playing The Polar Express on a portable DVD player screen. The kid building was also kind of cool, they had gunnie pigs in the craft area, and in the play trees they had some frog things that mskate knew as a child.

After the kid building we had dinner. I had pulled pork nachos and mskate had a gluten free personal pizza, where we ate at the indoor seating area. After dinner we went to the petting zoo. We could pet anything except the rabbits and chickens. The rabbit wasn't a "tiny bunny," it was a large hare, I'd guess 15 pounds. This meant we could pet the sheep and goats. I didn't pet any but mskate did. The sheep were funny looking since they were all sheered. After the petting zoo we went to the aquarium. That was really fun. There was a tank with sting rays and sharks. There was a tank with jellies. There was an anemone with clown fish, and I said "look it's nemo." There was a kid looking at that exhibit and the mom got a laugh. We also saw a leopard shark and there were these old ladies who were asking what it was, and I read the sign and she was like "oh yeah I guess it does say that, if only I could read it." She also asked me if that was the largest they get, and I said "yeah that's typically how zoos do it, they have the full grown animals on display." I don't know if she thought I worked there (I do regularly get mistaken for an employee especially when I was a teenager, but I was bundled up in my winter coat wearing a yellow beanie and my yellow night glasses so I don't think I looked like an employee), but she did ask me and I did my normal "make my best educated guess and say so with confidence." There was also a "pet a sturgeon" exhibit, and I tried to but they were down at the bottom of the tank, and if it wasn't 20 degrees outside and I didn't have my man jewelry on I would have stuck my arm down to the bottom of the tank, like I did in Tennessee. There was also this cool bioluminescence exhibit where there were these flashlight fish that were blinking on and off. I tried to get photos and video, but they didn't show on camera. There was also an octopus, that was suctioned against the window so we got to see the suction cups and it "walked" along the window which was cool. The aquarium was just so cool, maybe my favorite part of the zoo (at least at night when a lot of the animals are asleep).

It's now after sunset, and basically all the animals are sleep now. We go down to the amphitheater where Santa is and the winter slide. The slide would have been something I really liked, it's a tube slide where you ride down ice. After looking around we found the reindeer encounter. We didn't pet them, but it was kind of neat. After this, lots of lights. There were a lot of simple animation scenes, which was really fun. There was also a tree that changed colors. We walked around some more and we found an owl that was out, and when we went to a bear or fox enclosure or something, and there was a rat nibbling on the food pellets. Mskate thought that was the exhibit, but I'm like "no babe, that's vermin" and she was like "really, but he's kind of cute, like your parents hamster." Yeah, we were rodent people, but she was right, the rat wasn't mangy or scarred, and didn't get scared when I shown a light on it or approached it from the other side of the glass (which is a trait of domesticated rats), so he was kind of cute. We also went to the great ape exhibit, which was closed but had this cool statue.

This was about the end of the night, having done basically everything and having spent 4 hours at the zoo, and getting cold. We walked the bridge back, which was about what I remember, and was kind of neat walking over the traffic. Now for the difficult thing of finding a souvenir shirt for mskate. She saw one where it was "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas," but all they had were child sizes and 3XL. We looked through all the gift shops, but nothing. Leaving was pretty easy though, our car was up front and we just had to jump on the free way to get to the hotel. I was still a little hungry and mskate needed a drink, so we went to the burger king that was right next to the hotel where I got a spongebob kids meal. I got a Mr. Krabs toy, a spongebob box, and a spongebob paper crown. The rest of the night we just watched Everybody Loves Raymond.

The next day wasn't super exciting, but the hotel breakfast had this cool pancake machine. The drive home was just a drive home. Later that day I went to see Kill Bill The Whole Bloody Affair, a movie that had been living in mystery for about 2 decades. Really great to see. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.